Gifts, Inheritances and Voluntary Payments

You can receive a gift or inheritance or other payment such as insurance or out of court settlement so long as all of these do not add up to more that $5,000 in any 12 month period. This will not affect your ODSP support but you do have to report it on your monthly reporting statement.

However, you are only allowed to have $5,000 in assets at any given point. So, if you have $1,000 in the bank and get $5,000 you will be over the asset limit and they will take $1,000 off of your cheque the next month. They will continue to reduce our cheque until your assets are $5,000 or lower.

You can get around this by spending the money on assets that are exempt (like your home or car) in the month that you get the money. Or, if you spend the money in other ways and keep the receipts you may not have your ODSP affected.

If you get more that $5,000 and this is put in a trust this should not affect your ODSP. However, there are some rules about how this has to work and they change depending on the amount of money so if you come across a lot of money through an inheritance or gift, contact a legal clinic or lawyer immediately.